1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a computer system for reducing booting time and a control method thereof. More particularly, the present invention relates to a computer system and a method for controlling the same in which a plug and play operation is executed only after a main body of the computer system has been disassembled.
2. Related Art
Computer systems are information handling systems and are utilized by many individuals and businesses today. A conventional computer system can be defined as a microcomputer that includes a central processing unit (CPU), a volatile memory, a non-volatile memory, a display monitor, a keyboard, a mouse, a floppy diskette drive, a compact disc-read only memory (CD-ROM) drive, a modem, a hard disk storage device, and a printer. Typically, a computer system's main board, which is a printed circuit board known as a motherboard, is used to electrically connect these components together.
A computer system typically performs a booting operation when power is supplied to the computer system. The booting operation initializes hardware mounted to the computer system and also loads the operating system.
There have been developed various devices and methods controlling aspects of the power-on and booting processes of computer systems. Examples of such devices and methods are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,214,695 for Apparatus and method for loading a system reference diskette image from a system partition in a personal computer system issued to Arnold et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,704,035 for Computer method/apparatus for performing a basic input/output system (BIOS) power on test (POST) that uses three data patterns and variable granularity issued to Shipman, U.S. Pat. No. 5,634,137 for Method and apparatus for updating system configuration based on open/closed state of computer housing cover issued to Merkin et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,559,965 for Input/output adapter cards having a plug and play compliant mode and an assigned resources mode issued to Oztaskin et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,375,210 for Display mode query and set issued to Monnes et al, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,535,415 for Method for automatically setting the internal and external port configuration system issued to Kondou et al.
A conventional booting process of a conventional computer system shall now be described, using as an example a computer system having a Microsoft(R) Windows(R) operating system such as Windows 95. First, a user turns on a power switch to supply power to the computer system. Thereafter, under the control of a central processing unit (CPU), a basic input/output system (BIOS) executes a power on self test (POST) to test and initialize the computer system's components. The basic/input output system is software embedded on an integrated circuit located on the computer system's main board. The basic input/output system also handles low-level input/output to various peripheral devices connected to the computer system. The power on self test is the part of the basic input/output system that takes control immediately after the computer is turned on. The power on selftest initializes the computer hardware so that an operating system can be booted (loaded). When the power on self test procedure is finished, a plug and play operation is executed if it is determined that all hardware is operating normally. During the plug and play operation, the entire computer system is scanned for new hardware. An example of a plug and play operation is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,634,075 for Backward Compatibility for Plug and Play Systems issued to Smith et al. When the execution of the plug and play operation is completed, system files used by the Windows 95 operating system are executed to complete the booting process of the computer system.
Unfortunately, the conventional booting process can require a substantial amount of time, due in part to the time required for the basic input/output system routine and the power on self test, in addition to the plug and play operation. In the above booting operation of the conventional computer system, because the plug and play operation is performed every time the computer system is booted, regardless of whether any new hardware has been added to the computer system, the booting time can be unnecessarily lengthy. Also, in the above booting operation of the conventional computer system, because computer systems are used the vast majority of the time with the existing hardware configuration and not after installations of new hardware, the booting time is unnecessarily extensive.
Although presently there do exist systems which partially control the power on and booting processes of computer systems, I have discovered that it would be desirable to enhance the booting process of a computer system in order to reduce the time required.